Exhibitions in 2004

Solid Cinema: Sculpture by Gregory Barsamian

August 14, 2004 - March 13, 2005

Organized by the Museum of Glass

Solid Cinema: Sculpture by Gregory Barsamian includes three large-scale motorized sculptures, which rely on the theory of persistence of vision to mesmerize viewers. Gregory Barsamian combines art, science, and humor in order to explore the subconscious. Through recognizable imagery, Barsamian's art allows the viewer to briefly enter into an unconscious world made visible, which he calls the "waking dream state." His animated sculptures are inspired by his dreams, which are merged with his imagination and the everyday to create a dream-like experience for the viewer.

Barsamian draws inspiration from philosophy, dream psychology, art and mechanics. He uses relatively simple technology and does not attempt to mask the mechanized features of his work. He prefers that the viewer understand the working dynamics so they can focus on the content of the piece rather than dwelling too long on how the effect is achieved.

Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection

September 18, 2004 - January 9, 2005

Tools As Art is an exhibition from the John Hechinger Collection of International Arts & Artists, Washington, DC. The tour has been organized by International Arts & Artists with Sarah Tanguy, curator of the Hechinger Collection. IA&A's national exhibition programs are generously supported through the Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation.

The Hechinger Collection celebrates an amazing variety of twentieth-century art that represents or incorporates tools and hardware. They are elegant and witty sculptures of tools—from common hammers, saws and wrenches to machine tools such as the lathe—in wood, glass, metal, paper and stone. Also included are constructions of found objects and building materials that use familiar forms to make works of imaginative power, as well as paintings, prints and photographs depicting tools of all sorts.

Tools as Art features sixty-five works of art from the unique holdings of hardware industry pioneer John Hechinger, Sr. From a painting of a giant hammer pulling out a misplaced nail to a chair made out of a garden rake, this exhibition explores the Hechinger collection's breadth and creativity.

Murano: Glass from The Olnick Spanu Collection

September 4 - November 7, 2004

Organized by Exhibitions International, New York, NY
The national tour of this exhibition is sponsored by VENINI S.p.A.. In Tacoma, sponsorship is provided by Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass and Washington State Arts Commission. Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at New York University, New York and Beacon Cultural Foundation, Beacon, New York have provided additional support.

Murano: Glass from The Olnick Spanu Collection is a comprehensive examination of Venetian glass making in the twentieth century. Organized chronologically, the exhibition comprises over 200 outstanding examples of blown glass, while simultaneously exploring the nature of modern Venetian glass in terms of its distinct characteristics and relationship to international design. Drawn from the collection of Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu of New York, many of the works in the exhibition are the finest examples of Murano glass in the world.

Marita Dingus: About Face

May 1 - September 6, 2004

Organized by the Museum of Glass
Sponsored by the Dimmer Family Foundation

Marita Dingus is an artist who holds a deep respect for nature and the environment. This sensitivity is made plain in her artwork through her practical choice of materials. While her work begins with her selection of found objects like corks, coat hangers, bottle caps, cloth remnants, and bread twist-ties, she has become a master of reinvention. With diligence and care she forms intricate works that are layered, bound, tied, stitched or woven. In her busy hands, nothing goes to waste, and her artwork pays homage both to the spirit of recycling and the quality of life offered in the Pacific Northwest. The exhibition will include pieces created by Dingus during her September 2003 visiting artist residency in the Museum's hot shop.

Italo Scanga: Metaphors

March 20 - August 15, 2004

Organized by the Museum of Glass and the
Italo Scanga Foundation
Sponsored by Russell Investment Group

Italo Scanga: Metaphors presents the art of Italo Scanga (Italian, 1932 - 2001) in a large-scale exhibition that focuses on his life and his work. The exhibition celebrates his unrestricted, inclusive approach to creating art. Featuring over twenty large-scale mixed media sculptures, Metaphors demonstrates the dramatic colors and exuberant, yet harmonious, lines for which Scanga is so well known. Using a variety of materials, including glass, as metaphors, the works address issues such as fear and vulnerability, heritage and the home, and folklore and myth. The resulting poetic forms also demonstrate pivotal movements in twentieth-century art such as Cubism, Folk Art and Abstract Expressionism.

Italo Scanga: Metaphors—Glass Studies

March 3 - September 19, 2004
Art Alley

Organized by the Museum of Glass and the
Italo Scanga Foundation
Sponsored by Russell Investment Group

Italo Scanga: Metaphors—Glass Studies focuses on Scanga's influence as a teacher and mentor. It includes experimental works he created with artists James Carpenter, Dale Chihuly, Joey Kirkpatrick, Flora C. Mace and Robbie Miller. These pieces combine glass with garlic, pliers, saint iconography and scissors, true to Scanga's practice of mixing materials in distinctive ways.

Extra Virgin: Work by Judith Schaechter

April 3 - August 1, 2004

Organized by Claire Oliver Fine Art

Judith Schaechter is considered one of the most skillful internationally recognized artists using stained glass; she draws on techniques that range from Tiffany and La Farge to thirteenth- and fourteenth-century cathedral traditions. The complex and time-consuming nature of her design and assembly process permits her to produce at most about ten to 12 pieces annually. Her life and work are inseparable, which perhaps accounts for the seamless quality of her artistic output.

Breathing Glass and Raining Popcorn: Installations by Sandy Skoglund

January 24 - April 18, 2004

Organized by the Museum of Arts & Design and the Museum of Glass
Sponsored by the Ben B. Cheney Foundation

Sandy Skoglund is an installation artist, painter, photographer and sculptor whose work examines the irrationality of modern life. Drawing from an artificial and consumerist culture, Skoglund's installations are often composed of the products of that culture-clothes hangers, fast food, paper plates and snacks. Although she utilizes everyday objects, her subject matter often confounds the viewer. Behind the sculptural installations and photographic images is her intention to trigger discomfort and self-reflection. It is this complex web of opposing forces that gives her work its compelling power.

Installations

In Flux House, 1993

Nam June Paik
Grand Hall Installation
October 31, 2004 through October 31, 2005

Mixed media, three-channel video installation
Courtesy of Carl Solway Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio

Nam June Paik has played an instrumental role in expanding our understanding and definition of the arts through new media. Exploring installation, video, television production, film and performance since the 1960s, he is a key pioneer in the introduction and acceptance of the electronic moving image into the art of the twentieth century.

The architecture of the installation is mainly composed using large 1950s "home entertainment centers"-vintage consoles that included a radio, a television set and a record player assembled in a single unit. Here, three different channels of video-some classic Paik video images and others relating to Fluxus performances-play silently in a continuous loop. What is amusing and ironic is that Paik is creating a whole "house" with these entertainment centers. Even the tile roof of the building is made from silver-colored laser video disks, which give off a brilliant, rainbowlike color effect when lit from above.

On a conceptual level, Paik predicted many years ago that video would be used to make architecture. So this piece, in fact, finds Paik using video to make architecture. If you go to Tokyo or Times Square in New York City today, you see entire facades of buildings displaying massive video images, confirming that Paik's prediction, made over ten years ago, has indeed come true.

Niijima Night Floats, 2004

Dale Chihuly
September 18, 2004 - April 3, 2005

Blown glass
Courtesy of Chihuly, Inc.

Niijima Night Floats are very large glass floats named for both the island of their origin and the much smaller Japanese fishing floats upon which the works of art are modeled. Created between the years of 1992 and 1996, the nine glass spheres comprising the installation evoke the cultural and historical authenticity of traditional Japanese glass floats, while the large scale and colorful individuality of each piece are hallmarks of internationally renowned artist, Dale Chihuly.

Although balls of plastic have replaced the blown-glass floats that were once used to buoy the nets of Japanese fishermen, Chihuly recalled, "When I was growing up in Tacoma you could find Japanese fishing floats on the beach after every big storm." He sought out the last living master of blown-glass fishing floats and began his own series of floats in 1991.

The idea for the series was born on the small, rocky island of Niijima, ten hours by ferry out of Tokyo Bay in Japan. The monumental floats now at the Museum were created later in his Seattle studio and are among the most technically challenging forms he has undertaken. "Just because they are so big, the Floats are technically, or let's say physically, the most difficult things that we have ever done. Even though a sphere or a ball is about the easiest form you can make in glass, when you get to this scale, up to forty inches in diameter, it becomes extremely difficult," explained Chihuly.